Trees for tomorrow
Trees live for many, many years - and always in the same place. They can’t just “take off” when they feel like it! Global warming is the big issue today, so we would be well-advised to plant them in the right place right now. The EU have been doing just that: they have established in France an experimental network called “CLIMAX” and planted a number of carefully selected trees which are expected to be able to withstand the harmful effects of climatic change. In Dordogne we saw the creation of one of these promising plantations - in Savignac-de-Miremont, on the hill above the famous Neanderthal necropolis: “La Ferrassie”.

Sharing the private life of Vespa Velutina,
the Asian hornet
Bernadette Darchen, biologist - or rather, as she likes to put it: “ecologist by trade” - has been using her entomologist skills to make an in-depth study of the Asian hornet. First seen in France in Bordeaux in 2005 in the form of a fertilized female, the species is threatening to colonise the whole of Europe. The biologist, who is president of the Apidor Association, is of course concerned about the protection of bees since it is a well-known fact that these new hornets are voracious bee-eaters. She has just brought out a fifteen-minute DVD revealing the results of her study.

Making the world a better place by their example. Moments
shared with a few wise Homo sapiens.